(Targeted News Service Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., May 30 -- The International Society of Automation issued the following news release:
A group of nationally recognized industrial communications experts helped attendees at ISA's 2013 Communications Division Symposium, held last week in Washington, D.C., sort out the maze of communications-related changes and challenges occurring in the marketplace.

Specific session topics covered at the symposium, which was sponsored by the ISA Communications Division (http://www.isa.org/MSTemplate.cfm?MicrositeID=530&CommitteeID=5222), included industrial wireless, supervisory control and data acquisition, Smart Grid, wireless backhaul networks, fieldbuses (including the latest developments in FDT and FDI), field network troubleshooting, industrial Ethernet and cybersecurity.

The symposium also served as the venue for a meeting of the ISA100 Committee, which establishes standards, recommended practices, technical reports, and related information that define technologies and procedures for implementing wireless systems in the automation and control environment.

ISA's third Passive Wireless Sensor Workshop, which also was held in conjunction with the symposium, brought developers, manufacturers and potential end-users together to examine passive wireless sensor technologies and their practical applications. While high costs currently limit their widespread use, passive wireless sensors deliver an attractive option for reducing dependency on wired connectivity and adding functionality without wires or cables. They have no battery, no expensive electronics at the sensor site, and no need for a wired connection between the sensor and the data acquisition system.

The keynote speaker at workshop was Donald C. Malocha (http://caat.engr.ucf.edu/people/malocha/malocha.htm), a Pegasus-Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Malocha, a member emeritus of the Electronics Industries Association (EIA) who has authored more than 200 technical publications and been awarded 12 patents, discussed his latest research initiatives in solid-state devices, surface acoustic wave (SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) technology, sensors and wireless radio frequency identification systems.

"The workshop added significantly to the excellent set of contacts for and reference material on passive wireless sensor technology that can be used as an alternative to wired connectivity," reports George Studor, the senior project engineer at the Johnson Space Center who specializes in in-space wireless health monitoring and inspection systems. "I believe it made all participantsmore aware of how wireless sensors are changing almost every aspect of our world. We are on the verge of something very big when sensors can be 'stamped out' just like cell phone components, when every cell phone in the world can be used to interrogate passive sensors of all types, and when every cell phone tower can be used to collect data from tens of thousands of nodes located all over a city."
A compilation of technical papers presented at ISA's 2013 Communications Division Symposium will soon be available for order in CD-ROM format on the ISA website (http://www.isa.org/).

ISA's Communications Division is committed to helping communications professionals better understand and capitalize on the fast-evolving changes in the industrial communications technologies, including the physical layer/hardware and associated operating systems and communications protocols. For more information about the ISA Communications Division, visit www.isa .org/comm or call +1 919-549-8411.